Glen Grant 12 1988 Single Cask Caledonia

I did an Advent Calendar made up of samples I had acquired over time, chosen by my wife, amongst all of the samples in my whisky shelf.

We’re onto Advent Day #5. If you tried to guess she put them in order of alcohol strength, you’d be both correct and incorrect. There are some hiccups on the way. She may also be doing one with gin and tonics.

What did day 5 bring? Well a single cask, of course!

Price: No Longer available

Region: Speyside

Barrel # 50905

Distilled: 1988

Bottled: 2000

Abv: 43%

Colour: 7.5Y 9/8

Nose: Caramel, cashew butter, grassy, earth, peach

Muted. One of those drams that you end up with the glass impressions on your face from forcing your nose into it like a hungry bear.

Thought I was going to go with a glory hole joke there, weren’t you? Sicko.

Once you jam almost all of your face in the glass you pick up creamy notes, grass, and some earth.

Taste: Cinnamon, celery, peach, anise, lemon

Some spice, more earth/vegetal notes, and fruit/acid. Pretty generic Glen Grant notes, nothing too crazy going on. Fruit, spice, and earth.

Finish: Bread, mint, cotton, honey, char

Nice bread at the end, that’s different. Almost would say it’s going slightly the path of Irish whiskey if it wasn’t so meh. Honey, char, some cotton. Arguably the best part, only because it finally wakes the fuck up and does something, anything.

Conclusion: Why was this ever sold as a single cask? It’s not rough. Not by any crazy imagination, but it’s basically just another meh Glen Grant with a finish that isn’t boring.

Look, look, I get it. I’m not exactly the most unbiased person on Glen Grant, what with them killing my family. Oh, wait, no they didn’t, I’m just not ga-ga for them like some. But this right here? It’s a barely-there nose, an okay taste, and then a finish that does floral/vegetal nicely.

It’s certainly drinkable, but there’s better out there, and this must have been forced out the door to make room for something. It’s not bad, but it’s not good either.

65/100

Guess: Speyside, 43%, Ex-bourbon

Actually: Glen Grant 12 1988 Single Cask Caledonia

Scotch review #1062, Speyside review #293, Whisky review #1655